Through Central Borneo: An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-

Lumholtz, Carl, 1851-1922Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.1
Word count
754K words
Chapters
76

Tags

English Originals Travel Anthropological StudyTropical RainforestAdventure JourneyBorneo ExpeditionTravel NarrativeFieldworkIndigenous CultureExotic CultureEthnographyCross-Cultural View

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Through Central Borneo; an Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Author: Lumholtz, Carl, 1851-1922,Language: English, Class: DS: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Asia, Release Date: Feb 1, 2005

Editor's review

This is explorer Carl Lumholtz's account of two years of travel and research in Central Borneo, a typical text of ethnographic travel writing from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The author narrates his journey, the natural environment, and the customs and material culture of local peoples in the first person, with meticulous observation and a narrative bearing clear marks of its era. For today's readers its value is twofold: as historical material for understanding the geography and peoples of Borneo's interior, and as a sample for reflecting on the perspective and representational modes of early European explorers. The book's accounts of so-called "headhunting" customs must be understood in their contemporary context, and readers should read critically. The text is in English, lengthy, and dense in narrative, suited to slow reading by those interested in Southeast Asian ethnography, travel literature, and colonial-era knowledge production; it is not a light travelogue or a modern travel guide.

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Reading tips

  1. Begin with the table of contents and chapter introductions, tracing the author's itinerary along its geographical route.
  2. While reading, note the author's judgments about local peoples, distinguishing observation from prejudice.
  3. Compare with modern Southeast Asian ethnographic works to test the limitations of older records.
  4. There is no need to finish in one sitting; reading chapter by chapter with thematic notes is more effective.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76

FAQ

What does "the land of head-" in the title refer to? This is the author's name for the interior region of Central Borneo at the time, connected with the headhunting customs of some local peoples. The expression carries a clear contemporary and outsider perspective; today's readers should understand it as a naming situated in a specific historical context, not an objective summary of the region.
Can this book be used as a modern travel guide? No. It records travels and observations from over a century ago; transportation, settlements, and social conditions have all changed enormously, and the book contains no practical information needed for modern travel. It is better suited as historical and ethnographic reading material than as a travel reference.
What should readers pay particular attention to? The book's descriptions of local peoples carry the perspective of a late-nineteenth-century European explorer and may contain simplifications, exoticism, or value judgments. Readers are advised to distinguish the author's observations from his interpretations, view the statements critically, and compare them with modern research.

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About the author

Lumholtz, Carl, 1851-1922 Author · Norwegian · 1851–1922

Carl Lumholtz (1851–1922) was a Norwegian explorer and ethnologist known for long periods of fieldwork and ethnographic writing. He carried out extensive studies of Aboriginal peoples in Australia and traveled in Mexico to study the lives and customs of local communities, and these experiences supplied the main material for his books. Two of his works are held in this collection: Unknown Mexico, Volume 1, and Through Central Borneo: An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters. The former presents the landscapes and peoples of Mexico's interior, while the latter records travels and ethnographic observations in inland Borneo. His writing is based on first-hand observation, with close attention to terrain, ways of living, and customs, and has value both as travel narrative and as ethnography, offering early primary material on the regions he visited. Public information on the details of his life is limited, so no further inferences are made here.